TurboVNC 3.0 beta1 has been released

[DRC]

Official binaries and source tarball are here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/turbovnc/files/2.2.90%20(3.0%20beta1)

Change log is here:
https://github.com/TurboVNC/turbovnc/releases/tag/3.0beta1

========================================

Major new features:

- Unified cross-platform TurboVNC Viewer based on the Java TurboVNC
Viewer with an embedded JRE (no separate JRE required except for 32-bit
Linux)

- The TurboVNC Session Manager, which uses the embedded SSH client in
the TurboVNC Viewer to remotely start, kill, or manage multiple TurboVNC
sessions under a specific user account on a TurboVNC host, as well as to
automatically authenticate with the host and encrypt the connection

- TurboVNC Viewer: Support for password-less SSH authentication using
ssh-agent or Pageant

- TurboVNC Server: noVNC integration
* The vncserver script can now launch a simple HTTP server to serve
up an instance of noVNC for the TurboVNC session.
* The TurboVNC Server now supports the Websocket protocol (to enable
connections from noVNC without a proxy.)

- TurboVNC Server: Improved window manager compatibility with recent
Linux distributions (see https://turbovnc.org/Documentation/Compatibility30)

- Linux TurboVNC Viewer: Improved drawing tablet support (no longer
necessary to use Virtual Tablet mode with Qt applications)

- Linux TurboVNC Viewer: Touchscreen/multitouch event support

- TurboVNC Viewer: TurboVNC Viewer Options dialog usability improvements
(particularly the Security tab)

- TurboVNC Viewer: Added view-only toggle and zoom (scaling)
hotkeys/menu entries (previously only existed in the Windows native
TurboVNC Viewer)

- Listen mode now supports authentication and encryption.

- TurboVNC Server: All collaborators can now see cursor movements in a
shared session.

- TurboVNC Server: Overhauled congestion control algorithms

- TurboVNC Server: The ability to configure ALR, interframe comparison,
sharing, and profiling dynamically for an active TurboVNC session

- TurboVNC Viewer: The ability to save a screenshot of the remote desktop

- TurboVNC Viewer: The ability to tile multiple connection windows with
a hotkey

- TurboVNC Viewer: The ability to simultaneously open multiple
connections with different options from the command line

- TurboVNC Viewer: Authentication dialog is color-coded to indicate
encryption, no encryption, or redundant encryption.

- TurboVNC Server: Upgraded X.org components (xorg-xserver 1.20.13, Mesa
20.3.5, etc.)

========================================

Major features that were on tap for 3.0 but didn't make it due to lack
of time and funding:

- The ability to set different viewer options for each VNC server
(feature regression relative to the Windows native TurboVNC Viewer)

- The ability to save connection info files (feature regression relative
to the Windows native TurboVNC Viewer)

- 3-button mouse emulation (feature regression relative to the Windows
native TurboVNC Viewer)

- UTF-8 clipboard support

- Server-side key mapping (to fix various issues with dead keys on
international keyboards)

- Relative mouse movement

- Usability improvements, including:
* Returning to the connection dialog if an error occurs while connecting
* More intuitive compression level controls
* Compatibility mode for connecting to non-TurboVNC servers

========================================

TurboVNC needs your help. I had to dig deep into my own pockets to
finish this release, and as you can see above, there is much more work
to be done. If your organization could benefit from one of the features
marked "funding needed":

https://github.com/TurboVNC/turbovnc/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22funding+needed%22

then please consider funding the development of that feature. We also
accept (and greatly appreciate) individual donations:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=information%40virtualgl%2eorg&lc=US&item_name=The%20TurboVNC%20General%20Fund&no_note=0&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHostedGuest

or Venmo @dcommander. Every dollar goes directly toward developing
TurboVNC.

DRC

[Rafael Guimaraes]

Dear DRC,

I currently have an environment with a web portal that manages turbovnc/virtualgl sessions for my users. I use OTP, so that they can transparently connect to their session (through an ssh tunnel).

How could a similar behavior be achieved by using TurboVNC 3.0 since JWS is no longer supported? Are there any thoughts on this?

Cheers,

Rafael Guimarães

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TurboVNC Developer Discussion" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to turbovnc-deve...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/turbovnc-devel/3d1eee20-ee2b-a617-43ba-9d4d5537937d%40virtualgl.org.

[DRC]

If you want to migrate to the TurboVNC 3.0 Viewer, then probably the best approach would be to have your portal generate a .vnc connection info file for a particular TurboVNC session and download that file to the user's browser, which would launch a client-side installation of the TurboVNC Viewer and automatically connect to/authenticate with the session.  (The TurboVNC 3.0 Windows installer should still register the new TurboVNC Viewer as the handler for .vnc files, but please let me know if it doesn't.)  The first TurboVNC web portal ever designed, the one for which Santos Ltd won a Red Hat Innovator of the Year award in 2011, continues to use that approach.  Of course, the downside is that you would have to install the TurboVNC 3.0 Viewer on every system that will use the portal, and the TurboVNC Viewer doesn't have an automatic update mechanism like Java does.  (NOTE: I could probably implement such an update mechanism if someone paid for my labor to do so.)

If you want to stick with JWS and TurboVNC 2.2.x, then I can provide extended support for TurboVNC 2.2.x on a paid basis, much as Oracle is providing extended support for Java SE 8.  That would entail back-porting any relevant fixes from the main (3.0.x) TurboVNC branch into the 2.2.x branch and spinning builds (either periodically or on demand) using our official build system.  Those builds would contain fully signed JAR files that will continue to work with JWS.  I charge an hourly rate for that work based on the actual labor that your organization needs me to perform.  Note that there won't be a TurboVNC 2.2.8 release, so any post-2.2.7 fixes will only be provided in official/signed TurboVNC 2.2.x JARs through this paid support mechanism (although organizations are, of course, free to spin and sign their own JARs.)  Note that your organization could also obtain your own code signing certificate and sign the TurboVNC 3.0 Viewer JARs for use with JWS.  Nothing prevents the TurboVNC 3.0 Viewer JARs from being used with JWS.  I just don't officially support that deployment mechanism, outside of a paid support context, because Oracle no longer does.

There are also open source alternatives available for JWS, such as OpenWebStart (https://openwebstart.com), if you want to continue using JWS with the latest Java releases and/or you don't want to pay for extended support for Java SE 8.  But of course enterprise support isn't available for those alternatives, and you would still need to pay for my labor if you need me to provide any post-2.2.7 features/fixes in an official/signed TurboVNC Viewer JAR.

Darrell

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/turbovnc-devel/CAMCG4_9oENLpJmfv%2BAno3tML%2BF8HPHJyRSyUnyi0fAj01hFgww%40mail.gmail.com.